(AP) – RAMALLAH, West Bank — When the iconic 1970s disco group Boney M rocked Ramallah this week, the local music festival prevented the band from performing one of its biggest hits.

Lead singer Maizie Williams said Palestinian concert organizers told her not to sing "Rivers of Babylon." The song's chorus quotes from the Book of Psalms, referring to the exiled Jewish people's yearning to return to the biblical land of Israel.

Palestinians often question the Jewish historical connection to the Holy Land. Organizers said they asked for the song to be skipped, deeming it "inappropriate."

"I don't know if it is a political thing or what, but they asked us not to do it and we were a bit disappointed that we could not do it because we know that everybody loves this song no matter what," she said.

The band performed its other big hits, like "Ma Baker," "Daddy Cool," and "Rasputin" in front of hundreds of screaming fans.

The Palestinian International Festival started Monday and runs through Saturday, bringing international performances to the West Bank cities of Ramallah, Jenin, Hebron and Bethlehem.

The concert comes amid a Palestinian campaign to get international artists to boycott Israel. The Pixies and Elvis Costello, among others, have canceled concerts in Israel following pressure from pro-Palestinian groups.

"I believe you should entertain wherever you are asked to entertain, whether it is Israel, whether it is Palestine, whether it is Lebanon, where ever it is, we go," Williams said in Ramallah.

"At the end of the day, politics is one thing and entertainment is another thing and when I got into the entertainment business I didn't get into it for politics. I got into it to make people happy," she said.

Background to Op-Ed:After PMW director Itamar Marcus's press conference in Washington with Congressmen Brad Sherman and Steve Rothman to release the PMW report From Terrorists to Role Models, Palestinian Member of Parliament Hanan Ashrawi wrote an Op-Ed in the influential Washington newspaper, The Hill, to attempt to challenge Palestinian Media Watch and defend the Palestinian Authority. Itamar Marcus's response, documenting the current PA leaders' and Ashrawi's response to terror, was published yesterday in The Hill.

"The Hill has a print circulation of above 21,000, more than any other Capitol Hill publication. It is aimed at the 100 senators, 435 House members, 40,000 aides and tens of thousands in the influence industry whose work affects the lives of all Americans." [from The Hill web site, http://thehill.com/ ]

In an attempt to distract Congress's attention from a new Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) report documenting the Palestinian Authority's terrorist glorification, Hanan Ashrawi rushed to publish an article in The Hill to malign PMW. More striking still, although Ashrawi's article was in response to PMW's new report released in Congress, she did not allot even one sentence to name, review or even criticize the report's content. Why is Ashrawi so anxious to keep the contents of the PMW report from Congressional review?

Possibly because the report, From Terrorists to Role Models: The Palestinian Authority's Institutionalization of Incitement, documents 100 examples of the Palestinian Authority policy of turning terrorist killers into heroes and role models - a practice as disturbing as it is indefensible.

The PMW report documents, for example, that the terrorist Dalal Mughrabi, who led a bus hijacking in which 37 civilians were murdered, has been immortalized through the repeated naming of sites and events after her, including two elementary schools, a kindergarten, a computer center, a summer camp, football tournaments, a public square and street, an adult education course, a university club, a dance troupe, a military unit, a dormitory in a youth center and more.

Significantly, this terror veneration is coming from the leadership of the Palestinian Authority. It was PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas himself who funded the computer center named after bus hijacker Mughrabi, and it was Prime Minister Salam Fayyad who sponsored a sporting event named after Abu Jihad, who planned and directed the bus hijacking. The message the PA leaders are disseminating could not be more problematic: We, the Palestinian President and Prime Minister, believe that murdering brothers 6-year-old Roi and 3-year-old Ilan Hochman and their mother Rebecca, along with 34 other civilians on a bus, was an act worthy of honor.

The PA's message that terrorists are role models is as damaging to peace as it is odious.

It is not surprising, therefore, that Ashrawi wants to distract Washington from the report, by attempting to wrongfully link PMW to extremist violence through one if its supporters, the Central Fund of Israel. PMW receives grants from CFI, which funds more than 250 organizations and gives financial aid to a range of non-profits, including soup kitchens, Ethiopian immigrants, and educational programs. There is no connection between PMW and any of the other 250 recipient organizations.

In fact, far from supporting or being involved in extremist violence, PMW's senior staff has vigorously promoted peace and coexistence. To name just a few of our peace-promoting activities, I wrote a report on Israeli schoolbooks for the Center for Monitoring the Impact of Peace that documented and criticized any negative content that was found. Associate Director Barbara Crook sponsored an Interfaith Dialogue weekend in Ottawa, featuring Kadi Muhammed Zibdi, kadi of Jerusalem, and was a sponsor of Peace Camp Canada, a program for Israeli and Palestinian youth.

There is still another reason for Ashrawi to try to keep the contents of PMW's report quiet. The US government has already responded to these PMW findings by emphatically condemning PA terror glorification. State Department spokesman Philip Crowley: "We also strongly condemn the glorification of terrorists... We will continue to hold Palestinian leaders accountable for incitement." [April 8, 2010] Hillary Clinton likewise condemned a group that "... glorifies violence and renames a square after a terrorist who murdered innocent Israelis." [March 22, 2010]

Moreover, US law prohibits the use of American funds for terror glorification. As the United States today is funding the Palestinian Authority, American money is indirectly being used to glorify Palestinian terrorists. Congress will soon be questioning if funding the Palestinian Authority violates American law.

Finally, it is important to note Hanan Ashrawi's famous statement on terror. At the height of the Palestinian terror campaign in 2002, after hundreds of Israeli civilians had been killed in suicide bombings, Ashrawi and others issued a public declaration. However, she didn't condemn suicide terror or say killing civilians was wrong. She said killing Israeli civilians should be stopped "... because we do not see results from these actions... We believe that these operations do not advance the fulfillment of our endeavor, for freedom and independence..." [Al Quds, June 19, 2002].

She went on to refer to suicide bombings as "military actions [that] are defined positively or negatively not by their own criteria but rather according to the achievement of political goals..." So is it any wonder that today she attempts to evade PMW's report exposing Palestinian Authority terror glorification?

Hanan Ashrawi owes it to the readers of The Hill to at least address the findings of the PMW report. Will she join the US administration and Congress and condemn terror glorification? Or will she defend Mahmoud Abbas and Salam Fayyad's honoring of terrorists? We are waiting for her answer.

Palestinians in the Arab World: Why the Silence?

When was the last time the United Nations Security Council met to condemn an Arab government for its mistreatment of Palestinians?

How come groups and individuals on university campuses in the US and Canada that call themselves "pro-Palestinian" remain silent when Jordan revokes the citizenship of thousands of Palestinians?

The plight of Palestinians living in Arab countries in general, and Lebanon in particular, is one that is often ignored by the mainstream media in West.

How come they turn a blind eye to the fact that Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and many more Arab countries continue to impose severe travel restrictions on Palestinians?

And where do these groups and individuals stand regarding the current debate in Lebanon about whether to grant Palestinians long-denied basic rights, including employment, social security and medical care?

Or have they not heard about this debate at all? Probably not, since the case has failed to draw the attention of most Middle East correspondents and commentators.

A news story on the Palestinians that does not include an anti-Israel angle rarely makes it to the front pages of Western newspapers.

The demolition of an Arab-owned illegal building in Jerusalem is, for most of these correspondents, much more important than the fact that hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in Lebanon continue to suffer from a series of humiliating restrictions.

Not only are Palestinians living in Lebanon denied the right to own property, but they also do not qualify for health care, and are banned by law from working in a large number of jobs.

Can someone imagine what would be the reaction in the international community if Israel tomorrow passed a law that prohibits its Arab citizens from working as taxi drivers, journalists, physicians, cooks, waiters, engineers and lawyers? Or if the Israeli Ministry of Education issued a directive prohibiting Arab children from enrolling in universities and schools?

But who said that the Lebanese authorities have not done anything to "improve" the situation? In fact, the Palestinians living in that country should be grateful to the Lebanese government.

Until 2005, the law prohibited Palestinians from working in 72 professions. Now the list of jobs has been reduced to 50.

Still, Palestinians are not allowed to work as physicians, journalists, pharmacists or lawyers in Lebanon.

Ironically, it is much easier for a Palestinian to acquire American and Canadian citizenship than a passport of an Arab country. In the past, Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza Strip were even entitled to Israeli citizenship if they married an Israeli citizen, or were reunited with their families inside the country.

Lebanese politicians are now debating new legislation that would grant "civil rights" to Palestinians for the first time in 62 years. The new bill includes the right to own property, social security payments and medical care.

Many Lebanese are said to be opposed to the legislation out of fear that it would pave the way for the integration of Palestinians into their society and would constitute a burden to the economy.

The heated debate has prompted parliament to postpone a vote on the bill until next month.

Nadim Khoury, director of Human Rights Watch in Beirut, said, "Lebanon has marginalized Palestinian refugees for too long and the parliament should seize this opportunity to turn the page and end discrimination against Palestinians."

Rami Khouri, a prominent Lebanese journalist, wrote in The Daily Star that "all Arab countries mistreat millions of Arab, Asian and African foreign guest workers, who often are treated little better than chattel or indentured laborers…The mistreatment, abysmal living conditions and limited work, social security and property rights of the Palestinians [in Lebanon] are a lingering moral black mark."

Foreign journalists often justify their failure to report on the suffering of Palestinians in the Arab world by citing "security concerns" and difficulty in obtaining an entry visa into an Arab country.

But these are weak and unacceptable excuses given the fact that most of them could still write about these issues from their safe offices and homes in New York, London and Paris. Isn't that what most of them are anyway doing when they are write about the situation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip?

J Street's McCarthyism

J Street, the leftist lobbying organization that claims to be pro-Israel, is currently running a television ad that divides the world into two groups: The good guys who support the two-state solution, the end of the occupation and peace; and the bad guys who oppose these results and instead favor a continuation of violence. Pictured as representing the pro-peace position are President Obama, Secretary of State Clinton and General Petraeus. Pictured as representing the anti-peace, anti two-state, pro expansion of settlements and pro violence position are Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, Senator Lieberman, Malcolm Hoenlein (Director of the Conference of Major Jewish organizations), and -- you guessed it -- me!

Now Jeremy Ben-Ami, who runs J Street and who is responsible for the ad, knows full well that I support the two-state solution and peace, and have opposed Israeli settlements since he was in diapers. (I began publicly supporting the two-state solution in 1970 and began opposing settlements in 1973). Ben-Ami knows this because we debated each other at the 92nd Street Y and he publicly acknowledged that I support these positions. He knows that I wrote a book called The Case For Peace, advocating precisely these positions, which was praised by President Clinton ("the blueprint for stability presented in this book is among the best in recent years"), Amos Oz (Dershowitz's The Case For Peace is an "enthusiastic voice for peace") and other advocates of a peaceful resolution.

Why then would he falsely lump me with Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin when he knows that I fundamentally disagree with their positions? Why would Ben-Ami knowingly put out an ad containing such defamatory McCarthyism? (Joe McCarthy infamously lumped together liberals with communists, and progressives with Stalinists.) There are several possible reasons.

First, Ben Ami cannot tolerate the idea that there are liberals, like me and Professor Irwin Cotler of Canada, who support the two-state solution, the end of the occupation and peace, while fundamentally disagreeing with J Street's general negativity toward Israel. As I argued during the debate and other occasions, J Street and I tend to agree on many substantive issues, but I publicly focus on the 80% of issues on which there is broad consensus within the pro-Israel community; whereas J Street focuses on the 20% of issues on which there is disagreement, such as the policy toward Iran, the Goldstone report and nuclear policy. It would have been fair for J Street to have an ad putting me on the other side of those issues. But for Ben-Ami to try to persuade the public that I oppose the two-state solution (as Rush Limbaugh does), favor expansion of the settlements (as Palin does) and oppose peace is simply a lie, and a deliberate one at that. No softer word will suffice.

The second reason why J Street decided to include me in their insidious ad is to appeal to hard left elements such as Noam Chomsky, Norman Finkelstein and others who pay lip service to supporting Israel while condemning everything the Jewish state stands for. Ben-Ami is trying to build a large organization and in order to attract the hard left, he finds it useful to demonize me, because the hard left hates my liberal support for Israel. That also explains why J Street rarely if ever praises Israel, even when the Jewish state takes risks for peace. To praise Israel is to risk losing the support and membership of the hard anti-Israel left--and Ben Ami is not prepared to lower his numbers, even if he is required to distort the truth, in order to increase contributions and pad his membership list.

The J Street ad is fraudulent in yet another way. It suggests that I am saying certain words but the voice is not mine. Thousands of my words, in my actual voice are available on YouTube, but none of them have me opposing the two-state solution or favoring expansion of the settlements or opposing peace. So they just make it up by including a video of me with my lips moving and a dubbed voiceover, suggesting that they have me (along with the others) on videotape opposing the two-state solution. (All the videos have moving lips, but some include words actually spoken by the person in the video while others could be attributable to any of the people in the video whose lips are moving--watch it and judge for yourself!) If this were a political campaign ad, J Street would be in deep trouble. But this is even worse, because it is an attempt to deceive the public into thinking that mainstream supporters of Israel all favor the expansion of settlements and oppose the two-state solution and peace.

J Street continues to destroy its credibility by posting deceptive and divisive ads of this kind. If they are willing to mislead the public in this manner, they should not be trusted to tell the truth about anything relating to Israel. They are more interested in increasing their own power and contributions than they are in supporting Israel or promoting truthful dialogue. If they want to have any chance at restoring their credibility, they must begin to tell the truth. A good first step would be to remove this ad and admit that it was fraudulent. Otherwise, everyone will begin to understand what the J in J Street stands for: Joe McCarthy.